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A Woman on the $10 or the $20 Bill?

By Vikas Bajaj August 5, 2015 5:14 pmAugust 5, 2015 5:14 pm

Photo

Credit Womenon20s.Org

A new poll out on Wednesday shows that 27 percent of Americans would like to see Eleanor Roosevelt on the $10 bill and about 17 percent want Harriet Tubman. Sacagawea came in third with 13 percent and Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Earhart each had 11 percent.

Those are interesting findings, but there is a related question that is perhaps even more important: Do Americans want a woman on the $10 bill or the $20 bill?

The Treasury secretary, Jacob Lew, says he wants to put a woman on the $10 bill, which currently has a portrait of Alexander Hamilton, which is why the Marist Poll focused on the $10 bill. Mr. Lew has said it is up for a redesign for anti-counterfeiting purposes; he has also promised to keep Mr. Hamilton on the bill in some form – either somewhere else on the bill or by issuing two different versions of the note.

But, as the editorial board wrote in July, it would be far better for a woman to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Jackson is one of the most controversial presidents in American history. He owned slaves and he was responsible for the destruction of American Indian tribes in the southeast. By contrast, Hamilton, the country’s first Treasury secretary, was an abolitionist and created the foundations of the American financial system.

Marist did not ask people whether a woman should go on the $10 or the $20. But in March, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that 45 percent of the people surveyed wanted a woman on the $20, 34 percent disagreed with that idea and 22 percent were undecided.

That was before Mr. Lew put out his $10 bill proposal. Lots of polls are being conducted these days for the 2016 presidential election. Maybe those pollsters could add a question to their voter surveys: Should a woman be on the $10 or the $20?